Editor - So Attorney General Michael Mukasey thinks our government "shouldn't need a warrant when somebody picks up a phone in Iraq and calls the United States." ("Mukasey backs Bush efforts on wiretapping," March 28).

So the people keeping us safe should be monitoring a whole bunch of international calls. And also monitoring calls originating in the United States to anywhere in the terrorist-infected world - or anywhere inside the United States, for that matter. Monitor them all!

Because you can be sure that there's plotting going on right here on U.S. soil - surveillance cameras everywhere.

When - if ever - we wake from our government-induced fear, the Constitution will be as meaningless as a crumpled piece of paper, our sons and daughters will all have a patriotic duty to enlist in the military (except the children of the powerful, of course) and our federal coffers having been emptied in "democracy-building" abroad.

Do I hear an alarm, any alarm?

MAIA KRACHE

San Francisco

Running to mommy

Editor - Poor Larry Ellison. He foolishly spends an absurd amount of money to build a monument his own bloated ego that now, apparently, his own advisers tell him no one with any sense would want to buy. And so this paragon of free-market enterprise and self-reliance runs to the government to bail him out, like a child with a scraped knee running to his mommy. Or more precisely, like all those other paragons of free-market enterprise and self-reliance at Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch and our other investment banks - the smartest guys in the room they'd have us believe - just ran to the government to bail them out. At taxpayer expense, of course. It's interesting that the fat cats in the penthouse suites who cry nanny-state socialism whenever someone suggests a bit more money for our schools or for health care or infrastructure are the first to run to mommy when things go bad. Health care and education are in the mess they're in because of the way ruling elite like poor Larry have rigged the system to privatize profit and socializa risk.

Not a race track

Editor - Regarding the Golden Gate Bridge accident of March 26: After having spent a very restful couple of hours over in West Marin, I spent about and hour and 40 minutes waiting to get onto the bridge. It wasn't fun, and when I found out what was going on, it really made me sad. The solution to the problem is to get drivers to respect the speed limit. It's a wonder there are not more horrible accidents.

Please, people, slow down on the Golden Gate Bridge. Respect your own life and the lives of others.